The Internet is a system of interconnected computer networks, which allows computer systems on the Internet to communicate with each other. Computers may communicate according to certain services such as electronic mail and the World Wide Web (WWW or “the web”). The WWW service is a system of interlinked hypertext documents. Documents on the web can be viewed with web browsers or other web-enabled applications. Web pages, text, images, videos, and other multimedia are all types of media that can be accessed in a web browser and other web-enabled applications. To view a document on the web, a client computer would usually send a request to a web server that is hosting web content. The client computer may identify the requested resource using an identifier such as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The web server would respond to the request by sending the appropriate document to the client computer. The client computer can display the document in a web browser or other web-enabled application. Web pages can be specified in many formats and languages. Sometimes, the web pages may include scripts, which are executable code. Web pages may also be backed by a database. Access to a web page may cause code to be executed on the web server and may cause accesses to a database. Web applications may also be Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) that operate on a software platform such as Flash or Silverlight. An RIA may require installation of the software platform on the client computer, for example by browser plug-in, in order to function. Other RIAs are implemented using built-in browser functionality. HTML5 and Javascript may be used to implement RIAs and are commonly built into browsers.
A problem faced in current computer systems is that a webpage downloaded on to a first computer by a web browser or other computer application is displayed on that computer only. What is lacking is a technology for displaying webpage elements downloaded by the first computer on a second computer that is connected to the first computer. It would be desirable to allow webpage elements downloaded by a first computer to be displayed on a second computer. It would also be desirable to allow some portions of a single webpage to be displayed on the first computer and other portions of the same webpage to be displayed on the second computer.
For example, currently, if a webpage is downloaded by a laptop, the webpage is displayed on the laptop. If the user has a second computer connected to the laptop (e.g., wirelessly or by USB cable), such as a mobile phone, it may be desirable for a webpage to specify that some elements be displayed on the laptop and other elements be displayed on the mobile phone. Sometimes it may be desirable that all webpage elements be displayed on the mobile phone. The technologies described herein enable these and other advantages.